Bye bye BTX, you'll not be missed

[nutball]

Looks like BTX might be headed for the annals of history...

http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=6685

... can't say I didn't see that one coming. I guess the message to Intel is that they have to solve their own problems with excessively hot processors, the rest of the industry isn't going to take a hit on the bottom line to solve it for them.

 

[_xxx_]

What's BTX? Is there an unintended extra "n" in one of the words in your post? Does Elvis still live? I guess we'll never find out...

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

No surprise given that it was really only meant to solve Intel's heat problems without addressing the rest of the system, and that even after all these years it barely made a dent in the ATX market. Third parties hated the way Intel constantly changed the spec, and even Intel didn't seem to know what the hell to do with it. It didn't do anything that a modern ATX case with a couple of 120mm fans couldn't do better.

Good riddance I say.

 

[zsouthboy]

*sheepishly* I kinda liked BTX for airflow reasons

Not that I have even touched a computer that was built in that design.

 

[trinibwoy]

Hmmm and imagine I was worried a couple years ago that they would soon stop making boards that would fit my case.

 

[Guden Oden]

It didn't do anything that a modern ATX case with a couple of 120mm fans couldn't do better.

That's nonsense.

BTX is clearly superior to ATX's non-existant solution to thermals and airflow (the basic idea being have a huge CPU cooler waft hot air around the entire case, with a smattering of large blowholes trying to evacuate it), especially when considering today's super-hot graphics cards, especially in SLI mode. One needed quite a few fans to beat the simple and elegant solution in BTX.

I don't get why people are so negative to BTX anyway, not when it is so obviously just plain BETTER. Simply the idea of switching the card slots around so hot electronics isn't facing downwards, inwards on itself is such a 'duh' moment one has to wonder why it took such a hell of a long time to carry out.

Add to that, the difficulties with jiggling in sufficient north and southbridge coolers when both are in close proximity to cardslots, DIMM levers interfering with the VGA card etc... One realizes ATX simply wasn't MADE for the condition that exists today. Yes, it can be juryrigged into working, and very rarely even working very well, but that isn't often seen. Extremely few ATX mobos don't have at least some kind of quirk or niggle that irritates or annoys. An oddly placed power connector, or a IDE ribbon cable that gets squeezed somehow, or the inability to fit that particular CPU cooler due to a capacitor that's too close or too tall.

ATX is old junk that needs to be tossed. No redeeming features about it whatsoever - other than simply being very prevalent, but so were the model-T fords once too. We don't drive around in cars like that anymore though, and for good reason. ATX needs to go defunct. It's POS.

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

That's nonsense.

ATX is old junk that needs to be tossed. No redeeming features about it whatsoever - other than simply being very prevalent, but so were the model-T fords once too. We don't drive around in cars like that anymore though, and for good reason. ATX needs to go defunct. It's POS.

Complete tosh.

It's BTX that is dying and ATX is continuing more popular than ever. I've built many ATX based machines that have been very cool and near silent just on aircooling.

Fact is BTX was good at cooling the overheating CPUs that Intel no longer makes, while not caring that the rest of the components overheated till they crashed your machine. That's why almost no one supported BTX, and even the main proponents have now finally abandoned it.

You only have to look at any online shop that sells cases to see that they have twenty ATX cases for every one BTX case. Why do you suppose that is if BTX is so superior in every way? I guess it's because you're right when everyone else (including Intel, who have finally given up on BTX) is wrong.

 

[Blazkowicz]

ATX is nowhere as outdated as was AT back in the times, and here are some griefs about BTX :

- the CPU cooling thing makes cases more expensive to produce
- it isn't that future proof, not even very current proof, as it mandates ram slots too far of the CPU, this favors classic FSB and northbridge but not integrated memory controller
- throwing away one's hardware pisses off people. yes you have to routinely do that anyway, but adding the case to the list sucks
- had BTX not existed, we'd probably have upwards facing PCI express slots, and a "shared" PCIe/PCI which would allow one more PCI slot on motherboards (like the shared PCI/ISA slot which was the reason for downwards facing cards in the first place)

 

[nutball]

I don't get why people are so negative to BTX anyway, not when it is so obviously just plain BETTER.

BTX reflects Intel's view of the world -- that everything revolves around the CPU. The CPU gets the nice cool air, the GPU gets the nice warm air that's just been heated up by Intel's patent P4 space heater. Yes, that makes sense in a world of 100W graphics cards, now doesn't it? Is it a coincidence that BTX dies along with P4? I don't think so.

I'm all for airflow-optimised design, I have no particular religious attachment to ATX (other than it's cheap, proven and it basically works), but if we're going to have a new form factor I'd prefer it was designed by broad consensus and takes into account the cooling requirements of the whole system, not just the CPU. Oh and playing silly buggers with the chipset positioning which make BTX AMD boards pretty much a no-no is yet more Intel-o-centric thinking. Thanks but no thanks.

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

BTX was basically invented by Intel to cool their hot CPUs. It just treated the symptoms of a problem, and everything else in the case be damned.

Just like the P4 architecture, RDRAM, etc, Intel has realised that BTX is a dead end. BTX just doesn't give benefit in today's PC environment, especially when cooling (both air and water) have become cheaper and more effective than ever, and ATX designs have become more innovative, quieter and cooler than ever.

 

[poopypoo]

Guess i'm just more Viagra for this Intel lovefest. BTX was frustrating in that it [i[seemed[/i] like a good idea -- an idea that still needs to happen (a redesign of ATX i mean) -- until Intel went ahead and acted like they usually do, and fucked it all up. Sometimes I wish they could do anything at all that's good for more than just themselves.

 

[ANova]

BTX is not a dead end and is in fact a very good design. Just because the industry has not adopted it does not make it otherwise, it just means certain individuals had no interest in it as as such it fell by the wayside to the already very present standard, which is of course easier to continue supporting than changing everything. The design is or was much better for cooling than ATX allowing for quieter and more efficient systems, whether the cpu created excessive heat or not.

 

[_xxx_]

I think I summed up the relevance of the BTX best with my post above

Dead as dead can be.

 

[karlotta]

...
- it isn't that future proof, not even very current proof, as it mandates ram slots too far of the CPU, this favors classic FSB and northbridge but not integrated memory controller
...

a winner!